


The Pie Maker

by obfuscatedheart



Series: Fests and challenges [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Pushing Daisies
Genre: FullerFeast, Hannibal is the lonely tourist, Jack is a grumpy private investigator, M/M, Will is the Pie Maker, pushing daisies!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 00:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11369169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obfuscatedheart/pseuds/obfuscatedheart
Summary: Will Graham, the Pie Maker, has a gift. He can bring dead people back to life. He really doesn't want to, but when his partnership with the PI Jack Crawford leads him back to his home to talk to the dead body of his childhood love: Hannibal Lecter, his routine changes drastically.





	The Pie Maker

**Author's Note:**

> This a gratuitous Pushing Daisies AU written for Cre-Ate-Ive's Fuller Fest.  
> This and the next chapter very closely (almost exactly) follow the first episode of Pushing Daisies. If, and when, I write more there will be divergence from Pushing Daisies.  
> For now this un-betaed but that may change.

_At this moment in his home of Wolf Trap, Virginia, Young Will aged; 9 years, 9 months, 3 days, 6 hours and, 14 minutes was running through the fields with his pet dog Winston aged; 3 years, 4 months, 15 days, 14 hours and, 51 minutes._

_And not a minute older._

Winston was running ahead of young Will streaking through fields of wheat into the road, where out of nowhere a truck hit him in front of Will’s horrified eyes.

When Young Will reached the body of his only, and favourite companion, and knelt to touch, his gift made itself know to Will. One touch to brown and the flanks twitched and Winston bounced back onto his feet and away.

_It was the moment that Young Will realised he wasn’t like the other children, nor was he like anyone else for that matter. Young Will could touch dead things and bring them back to life._

A wondering Young Will laughed and chased after him. Not seeing the consequences of his gift in action, as a raven dropped from the sky two feet behind him.

Will’s father swatted the fly out of the air as he prepared one of his famous flies, and Young Will watched the dead fly out of the corner of his eyes, when he reached out to touch it, the fly shook itself and flew away.

_This gift was given to him, but not by anyone in particular. There was no box, no instructions, no warranty, it just was. The terms of use weren’t immediately clear, nor were they of immediate concern. Young Will was in love. His name was Hanni, at this very moment, he was 10 year 5 months, 3 hours and 2 minutes old. Young Will did not think of him as being born or hatched or conceived in any way. Hanni came ready made from the play-doh fun factory of life._

_In their imaginations Young Will and a boy named Hanni conquered the world._

Whilst Young Will was dressed as a stag and Hanni as lamb they built and then razed their town made of cardboard and play-doh. Watching the inhabitants as they ran and screamed away from them, in fear and horror.

Young Will was called back into the house by his father, who promptly started cleaning him from the remnants of cardboard and play-doh that had clung to his clothes from his play with Hanni _._

_Long after their playdate was over, Young Will remained under Hanni’s spell… until a blood vessel in his father’s brain burst, killing him instantly._

He knelt down and touched his father’s cheek, who blinked and said, “Must have slipped. Clumsy.” Before getting up and checking the pie in the oven that, by the timer still had a minute left.

_Young Will’s gift came with a caveat or two, it was a gift that not only gave. It took._

When the timer rang to symbolise the minute, Young Will watched in horror as Hanni’s younger sister who had been playing the yard keeled over.

_Young Will discovered he could only bring the dead back to life for one minute without consequence. Any longer and someone else had to die. In the grand universal scheme of things, Young Will had traded his father’s life for Hanni’s sister’s. But there was one more thing about touching dead things that Young Will didn’t know, and he learned it in the most unfortunate way._

His father reached down to give Young Will a goodnight kiss, and fell over backwards, dead again. Young Will hopped out of bed and knelt down next to his father, touching his cheek again, but nothing happened.

_First touch: life. Second touch: dead again forever._

_After a brief mourning period, Young Will’s mother would hustle him off to boarding school, never to be seen again. Hanni would be fostered by his Aunt’s Bedelia and Murusaki, a renowned former synchronised swimming duo, they shared matching personality disorders and a love for fine wine and cheese._

_The two funerals were next to each other on the small cemetery plot of Wolf Trap, dizzy with grief, curiosity, and hormones Young Will and a boy named Hanni had their first and only kiss._

_After his father’s death Will avoided social attachments, fearing what he’d do if someone else he loved died. And he became obsessed with pies._

_It’s 19 years, 8 months, 1 day and 59 minutes later, hence forth known as now. Young Will has become the pie maker. Making his pies in his shop: The Teacup. The peaches never brown, the dead fruit in his hands becomes ripe with everlasting flavour, as long as he only touches it once._

***

Alana is stood in front of Jack Crawford, explaining her current sales technique, “Every day I come in, I pick a pie. I concentrate all my love on that pie, because if I love it, someone else is going to love it. And you know what? By the end of the day, I’ve sold more of those pies than any other pie in the bakery.”

Jack nods at her with a smile and asks, “What pie do you love today?”

“Rhubarb”

His smile vanishes and he states, “I’ll stick with three-plum, a la mode.”

Alana’s smile fades and she makes a disgruntled agreeing noise before leaving the table.

_Jack Crawford was the sole keeper of the pie maker’s secret, and this is how he became to be the sole keeper of the pie maker’s secret._

_A private investigator Mr Crawford met the pie maker when his Teacup was on the verge of financial ruin._

He had been chasing a suspect across the rooves of the town when the criminal had attempted a leap across a gap but unluckily hit the edge. The man had tumbled down striking the dumpster that was down there, obvious from the sound he knew that the man was dead. However as the dead body bounced off the dumpster it happened that the arm struck the curly-haired man below who was taking out trash. With a gasp Crawford watched as the man seemed to awake. The panic stricken look in blue eyes was evident even from the distance. The man below reached to the criminal and tapped him once on the hand and the body collapsed once more.

_Mr Crawford proposed a partnership; murders are much easier to solve when you can ask the victim who killed them. The pie maker reluctantly agreed._

“I asked you not to use the word ‘Zombie’ it’s disrespectful. And undead? Nobody wants to be UN-anything. Why begin a statement with a negative? It’s like ‘I don’t disagree.’ Just say you agree.” Will hated having this conversation with Crawford, but so often this conversation had to be had.

“Are you comfortable with living dead?”

“When you’re living, you’re alive. When you’re dead, that’s what you are. But when you’re dead then you’re not, you’re alive again.” Will answered.

Crawford only nodded.

“Can’t we say ‘alive again’? Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“Sounds like you’re narcoleptic.”

“I suffer from sudden an uncontrollable attacks of deep sleep?” Will countered, his weight resting on his bent elbows on the table between them.

“What’s the other one?” Crawford asks.

“Necrophiliac.” Will answers.

“Words that sound alike get mixed up in my head.”

Alana is filling up the napkin holders and chimes in, “Me too. I thought ‘masturbation’ meant chewing your food.”

The two men look at her with confusion and the usual smile that graces her face vanishes.

“I don’t think that anymore.”

“Can you lock the door behind you?” Will says to get rid of her.

She takes off the apron she wears over clothes as a quasi-uniform and leaves the two men alone. After the bell over the door tingles, Crawford turns back to Will expectantly.

“So you want in on this opportunity or not? I need your gift. And a dog is involved.”

At that word, Winston who had been resting on the floor between them whines and looks up at Will.

“What kind of dog?”

“It’s going to be a dead dog. A dead dog named Cantaloupe. They’re putting her down, allegedly killed her owner.”

Will is concerned for the dog and asks, “When you say ‘allegedly’…”

“Cantaloupe was framed. Someone put a part of the victim in her mouth.”

Will hums in interest.

“Hey, docile as a kitten says the family.” Crawford says as he takes a picture of a small fluffy Chow out of his pockets.

“Despite it being a Chow, the breed most likely to turn on its owner?”

“Hey, that’s racial profiling. Look here; if the dog is innocent, then it’s murder, and if it’s murder, then there’s a reward.”

_The facts were these: one Gretchen Speck, 39 years, 42 weeks, 5 days, 3 hours, and 26 minutes old, was found mauled to death in her home office. Her dog, Cantaloupe, was the sole witness and only suspect in the murder. Convinced of her innocence, the Speck family offered a significant reward to find the real killer._

So the next morning finds Will and Jack at the county morgue facing the coroner. An Asian lady with a smirk seizes Will up and says, “You the dog expert?”

Will clears his throat before making agreeing noises.

The coroner, whose badge only offers a B, or maybe a smudgy P says, “Already had a dog expert.”

Will glances at Jack, knowing that he has to come up with an excuse, “I’m the, uh, other one.”

She makes the most disbelieving agreeing sound before allowing them through into the morgue proper.

Will walked over to the covered body and lifted up a corner to take a look at the body.

“How’s she looking?” Crawford asked.

“Fine, but my threshold is pretty high, so you have to take what I say with a grain of salt.”

Jack moved behind him to also take a look at the body.

“That isn’t a grain of salt, that’s one of the blocks they give cows to lick.”

“She can’t help how he is.”

“That doesn’t make it any less traumatic.”

The woman lying on the slab was missing a large chunk of her face, with an obvious bite taken out of the cheek and jaw.

“For who?” Will asks

“Me. And I’m sure her, but mainly me. I’m going to wait outside.”

Crawford walks out of the room whilst Will considers the body. He then takes a breath before setting a minute timer on his watch and touching the woman’s shoulder.

The woman sits up halfway and turns towards him.

“Hello.”

“Hi.” Will answers. “Uh, sorry to disturb you, Miss Speck or Gretchen.”

“Gretchen, please.” She answers

“Gretchen, um, your current condition.” Will motions to his cheek

“Do I have something right there?” She asks and gestures to the missing chunk of flesh.

“No.” Will answers with distaste. “There’s nothing there.”

“Damn dog.”

“Cantaloupe?”

“No, no. Cantaloupe is docile as a kitten. It’s that Rottweiler. My secretary sicced his dog on me. He’s been upset since last year’s Christmas party. You know, it’s a funny story. I-.”

The minute was up before Gretchen could finish her story so Will tapped her on the shoulder again, and she fell back dead again on the table. Will hurriedly covers the body and rushes out of the room.

The coroner outside is a different person, a blond man with a badge that also has a scrawled B or P, and says, “Was it the Chow?”

“The secretary,” Will notices his mistake and shakes his head. “With her Rottweiler.”

Will leaves the building with Jack on his heels.

_Her good name cleared and her execution stayed, Cantaloupe was freed. And the secretary and her Rottweiler were hauled to justice._

Alana is watching the news with Winston in her lap, watching the report on a local woman who had been mauled to death by her secretary’s Rottweiler and enjoying the time with the dog. Winston was a surrogate for the human connection she longed for with Will. Her desperate attempts to connect to someone so disconnected terrified him. But that didn’t stop her from trying.

Will knocked on the door of Alana’s apartment, wanting to pick up his dog.

“How was your convention?” Alana asked as she opened the door.

“Conventional.” He answers with his hands planted firmly in his pockets. “How was Winston?”

“He’s a very needy dog. Maybe if you pet him once in a while, he wouldn’t be so neurotic.” She pokes him in the stomach and he cringes away.

He hastens to offer a justification that sounds plausible, “I’m allergic, so I can’t actually touch him, but I pet him.”

“With a stick? How do you pet him? Properly?”

“A stick is involved but it’s more like a handle to a, um, pet – petting device.”

Alana is slowly approaching and he backs away nervously, almost stumbling over the ottoman in her living room.

“A dog needs to be touched.” She says softly. “We all need to be touched.”

“You touch him. Other people touch him.”

“He’s your dog.” She takes his hands out of his pockets and places them on her shoulders. “Do you touch anything?”

“Of course. I, uh… I-I touch lots of things.” He snatches his hands away, but still can’t bring himself to look into her eyes.

“With affection?” She asks, hovering her hands over his shoulders. “When was the last time someone touched you with affection?”

She’s holding his shoulders now, ever so gently.

“I get touched.” He whispers.

“Can you get Winston’s leash now?” He says after swallowing the lump in his throat.

Alana makes a moue of disappointment whilst sighing and turning away from him.

He turns to Winston and asks, “You don’t mind that I don’t touch you, do you?” Winston whines in answer, and Will feels guilty.

_Then came the event that changed everything._

The news is still playing and Will listens to the broadcaster talking about the next segment.

“The body of a young man, allegedly murdered aboard a cruise ship has been recovered from the sea. The victim’s identity is being withheld.”

_The pie maker listened intently to the news, unaware that he stopped breathing. He was haunted by the nameless man who had met his end on the high seas. But he didn’t know why._

“Well, there’s you leash.” Alana says as she shock him out of his reverie by draping the object around his neck.

Over the next few days more details are released about the nameless man who had been killed whilst on a cruise. But Will doesn’t find out more information till late one evening when he is in The Teacup and Crawford knocks on the window.

“Been watching the news lately?” Crawford asks.

“There doesn’t seem to be much going on in the world besides a dead man in a boat.”

“A lot going on with that dead man.”

“That so?”

“Mh-hmm” Crawford sighs as he sips his coffee. “$50,000 worth of ‘that so.’ You interested in a conversation?”

“I could be persuaded.”

“Well you better be persuaded quickly. Because the dead man’s about to go in the ground.”

“They just pulled him out of the water.”

“Lithuanian. Americans leave them laying around. Europeans got to get them buried.”

“Where we going?” Will asks with trepidation.

“Wolf Trap. You ever been there?”

Will has an uncomfortable feeling sitting in his chest. “I grew up there, sort of.”

“This dead man from Wolf Trap – what is his name?” Will fears the answer he’s going to get from Jack.

“Hannibal Lecter.”

His past with Hannibal flashes before his eyes, unbelieving that the boy he was in love with, could possibly be dead.

“Hanni.” He breathes.

_The pie maker never returned to Wolf Trap after being sent away to school. But he thought of Hanni every day._

Will and Jack Crawford are travelling on the old rickety bus to Wolf Trap, increasing unrest is rising in Will. He doesn’t want to see Hanni, but knows he must.

“You know this man?” Crawford asks.

“I know of him.”

“Know of him in the biblical sense?”

“I haven’t thought of him since I was 10.”

“Think of him a lot when you were 10?”

“Don’t remember anything when I was 10.”

_The pie maker remembers everything._

_The facts were these: Hannibal Lecter, 30 years, 1 month, 1 day, 4 hours and 1 minute old, was found floating in the ocean moments after his body was discarded there. “Discarded by whom?” Seemed to be a question only Hannibal Lecter could answer._

Will and Crawford went into the Wolf Trap Funeral Home where they were greeted by the proprietor.

_The funeral director always eager to supplement his income.._

“Gentlemen.” He greeted them.

_… Was more than happy to grant the deceased an audience._

Will looks on the stark white coffin on its stand and turns to Jack. “Um, I just want to – I want to – can I do this one alone, on account of, you know, the whole historical context?”

“You got something personal you need to say?” Jack asks.

“No.” Jack gives him a disbelieving look.

“Okay, maybe. But I have nothing to gain but a small amount of closure.”

“What you got so open that needs closing?”

“I just want to say I’m sorry for something. One of those stupid things kids do they don’t know they’re doing.”

“Yeah. Well you ask who killed him first.” Jack says.

“Okay.”

“You only got a minute.”

“I know.”

“Sixty seconds.”

“I know.” Will sighs.

“Alright.” Crawford says as he leaves the room and closes the door behind him.

Will walks up to the coffin and lifts up the lid, staring down at the body of Hannibal Lecter. The man looks peaceful in death, almost asleep. Resplendent in checked suit, Will knows the boy he once knew grew up to be a beautiful man. Ash blonde hair that sits on his head in a perfectly coiffed slick, cheekbones that could cut glass, and full plush lips with a hint of a smirk.

_Only Prince Charming could know how Will felt upon looking at him. Great thought was taken as to where to touch him. The lips – too forward. The cheek – the cheek._

He brushes his fingertip against one of those cheekbones, and a hand reaches out to grab his tie and slam it against the open lid. Will grunts in pain as Hannibal jumps out of the coffin like a graceful cat, heading for one of the chairs that is gathered around the coffin.

“Hanni, wait” Will shouts.

“Who are you?” Hannibal answers.

“Do you remember a little boy who lived next door to you when your sister died?” Will says.

Hannibal considers him for a moment, “Will?” He asks.

Hannibal lowers the chair and rushes over to Will. “Hey, how are you?”

“Good. You look great.” Will answers, and he flushes, knowing what it must sound like, but he continues. “Do you know what’s happening right now?” Will raises a hand to stop Hannibal approaching further.

“I had the strangest dream I was being strangled to death with a plastic sack.”

“You were strangled to death with a plastic sack. That’s probably an odd thing to hear, but I wasn’t quite sure how to sugar-coat it.”

Hannibal looks to the coffin and realisation draws on his features. “Oh.” He simply states.

“You only have a minute – less.”

“What can I do in less than a minute?”

“You could tell me who killed you so, you know, justice can be served.”

“That’s really kind, but I don’t know who killed me, I went to get ice and I dropped my room key in the ice maker, and as I was thinking, ‘that was dumb’”…

_As he was thinking, ‘that was dumb,’ Hanni was strangled to death with a plastic sack._

“And then you touched my cheek.”

There’s a knock on the door and a furious whisper from Jack.

“Just a second.” Will shouts back.

“Is my time up?” Hannibal asks.

“I’m sorry.” Will states, and he really means it.

“Well, thanks for calling me ‘Hanni.’ You know no one’s called me ‘Hanni’ since... since you.”

Will doesn’t know what to say, so he settles on the truth. “When I used to live next door to you, I had a cru – I was in – you were my first kiss.”

Hannibal grins. “Yeah? You were my first kiss, too.”

Will smiles back at him.

“You want to be my last kiss?” Hanni asks. “First and last – or is that weird?”

Will shakes his head. “That’s not weird. It’s magical.”

_Hannibal’s minute of life was nearly over. The pie maker’s lips went as far as they would go. He couldn’t will them to go any further. And, as a consequence… the funeral director would go no further._

“Hey, if you don’t want to kiss me, it’s okay.” Hannibal says gently. “I just thought…”

“No, I want to. I do. I…” They are breathing each other’s air now, and a part of Will wants to feel the press of Hannibal’s lips on his, but the bigger part that knows what it will mean does not.

“What if you didn’t have to be dead?” He asks.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this. This was my first attempt at Hannigram or even Hannibal fic. Please leave me any feedback or comments.


End file.
